Trayvon's mom, Democratic lawmakers: Repeal Stand your Ground

TALLAHASSEE
-- Flanked by lawmakers, the mother of Trayvon Martin fought back tears Tuesday
as she called for the repeal of the Stand Your Ground law, which she believes has
been used as a shield by the man who
shot her son.

“How many times are we going to bury our loved ones
and not do something about it?” asked
Sybrina Fulton at a press conference in Tallahassee.
“We need to get rid of the law.”

A handful of Democratic lawmakers have filed bills
to repeal or scale back the self-defense statute that allows people who fear
for their lives to use deadly force. While Gov. Rick Scott said Tuesday that reviewing gun laws was "the right thing to do," the proposals face an uphill battle in the Republican-led and gun-friendly Legislature.

Fulton's plea from the halls of Florida’s Capitol occurred at the same time
that President Obama was pitching sweeping new restrictions on guns, including
universal background checks for gun buyers, a new ban on assault weapons and a
10-round cap on ammunition magazines.

While states like New York
and Colorado are moving to pass significant
new gun restrictions, legislative
leaders in Florida
have not made gun control a priority this year. Some leaders in the Republican Party, which holds
most of the decision-making power in the Legislature, have reaffirmed
their support for the Second Amendment in the face of calls for gun control
reform and none have filed bills on firearms.

The pitch to repeal the Stand Your Ground law is a
longshot proposal from Sen. Dwight Bullard, D-Miami and Rep. Alan Williams,
D-Tallahassee. Both said that incidents like the death of Trayvon, an unarmed
teenager shot to death in Sanford last year, is
evidence that Florida’s
Stand Your Ground law should be repealed.

“These tragedies renew the argument that Stand Your
Ground laws make ordinary citizens feel empowered to shoot first and ask
questions later,” said Williams. “We owe to not only Trayvon’s mother, who’s
here with us today, but we owe it to future generations, we owe it to the
citizens of the state of Florida, to ensure that these laws will not bring harm
to their families or to our streets.”

The Florida Legislature passed the Stand Your
Ground law in 2005, making Florida
the first of two dozen states to pass similar legislation.

The law drew worldwide media attention last year
after Trayvon was shot by George Zimmerman, who claimed self-defense and was
not initially charged. After public outcry, Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch
volunteer in Sanford, Fla, was eventually charged with
second-degree murder. His trial is pending.

Zimmerman insists that he was jumped and pummeled
by the 17-year-old Michael
Krop High
School junior, whom Zimmerman had followed after
finding him suspicious.

In response to the shooting, Gov. Rick Scott
created a 19-member task force to review the law. The task force, which spent
six months traveling the state and taking public testimony, concluded there was
no need to overhaul the controversial self-defense law.

Critics charged that the task force was dominated
by Stand Your Ground law supporters and Bullard called it a “dog and pony show.”

In a draft report to be presented to the governor,
the task force states that: “all persons have a fundamental right to stand
their ground and defend themselves from attack with proportionate force in
every place they have a lawful right to be and are conducting themselves in a
lawful manner.”

“The governor commissioned a task force to submit
recommendations,” said Bullard. “I want to emphasize the word ‘task.’ As in
they had a job to do and they failed their job.”

Marion Hammer, a former National Rifle Association
President who helped write the Stand Your Ground law, said the law was working fine.

“This legislation was about real people, real
problems, real injustices and real tragedies,” she told the task force in
October. “This law was right when it passed, and it is right today.”